Forsythia
Forsythia × intermedia
Nearly indestructible once rooted, with one catch — cut it in winter and the spring flowers go out with the prunings.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Yellow
- Sunlight
- Full sun — anything less costs it flowers.
- Watering
- Water it for the first year or two; very tough after that.
- Feeding
- A compost mulch after pruning is usually all it asks.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- March
- Pruning
- Prune as soon as the flowers fade, and never in winter.
- Mar–Mar Flowering
- Mar–Jul Bud Break
- Jul–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 8 ft 2 in
- In-row spacing
- 8 ft 2 in
- Between rows
- 10 ft 3 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody and fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 12–16 ft across, about 1.5–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
A shallow woody framework with the fine feeding roots in the leaf litter above it. Those feeders are mostly under the outer half of the canopy rather than against the stem, which is where water and feed should go.
Arching stems root where their tips touch the ground, so a forsythia walks slowly outwards unless the layered tips are cut away. It is also the easiest possible plant to propagate for that reason.
The habit is Forsythia’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Generally trouble-free No notable pest or disease problems when grown in the right conditions — one of the easy ones.
Daffodils, Muscari, Pulmonaria
Shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com